Monster Catfish
I wrote this a few years back in Arkansas. I miss catfishing!
Sometimes, even the Arkansas summer heat can not keep me at home. For some reason there is this urge to leave the air-conditioned home at 4 AM and go fishing. That early in the morning, it’s actually not that bad.
So once again I got the boat ready the night before and set my alarm clock. Funny, but when I go fishing or hunting that early I never need to use the snooze button. It was near a full moon and the moonlight was just enough to see things. I went to one of my favorite boat ramps, quickly slipped the boat into the water and headed out onto the Arkansas river.
I reached my destination within 5 minutes, a small island around which I had caught some good bait fish the week before. This time, however, I wasn’t as lucky, but still got a good load of little shad.
I let the current drift the boat towards one end of the island and set the anchor. While I got the first hook in the water, the sun started to rise in its beautiful colors of red. It didn’t take long for a catfish to find my shad. And within 20 minutes I had several nice eating size catfish on the stringer.
I had just gotten the big cat pole ready when I heard a big splash behind the boat. I turned around but didn’t see nothing but disturbed water. One of these days, I said to myself, I would catch me a huge catfish. I had seen several big ones on hot summer nights, but never got one on the hook.
With the rising sun also came the heat, and I started to get ready to head back. Just as I reached for the big cat pole, it bent down and line was pulled out. I immediately grabbed the pole, started reeling in a little and gave it a good jerk. I was using big treble hooks, and whatever it was I was sure I had it.
I thought I had finally hooked a monster cat. It pulled hard and all I did was hold on to the rod. I wasn’t afraid of the 30 pound line breaking either, I just had to hold on. I noticed the boat was being pulled away. But I should mention I was only using some old window weights instead of a real anchor. So that didn’t worry me much.
After holding on for maybe a minute I noticed the direction it was going. “Oh no”, I thought, “you’re not going into the reeds”. The shoreline of that island was covered with fallen trees and reeds. I pulled as hard as I could. I was not going to let this fish get hung up in a fallen tree.
The water wasn’t deep, so I could see the bobber moving closer and closer to the reeds. Then all of a sudden my “monster cat” broke the surface and made a big splash. I was shocked and thought: “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?” A huge beaver crawled out of the water into the thick reeds. And yes, he had my hook in his mouth! I didn’t want to let go of the fishing pole. I was looking for a knife to cut the line.
Beaver
In all the panic I found my pliers and clipped the line. Wow! I had to sit down. Not only was I exhausted from wrestling the beaver, I was still in shock. I thought I was going to land a monster catfish, and then it turned out to be a beaver. I had never seen a beaver around that island before and sure did not expect that. Although disappointed, I was more worried about that beaver. It now had a treble hook in it’s mouth and about 20 feet of fishing line on it.
I’d had my share of snakes and turtles getting hooked, but compared to that beaver, they were easy to handle. I don’t know how much time passed from the water splash and recognizing the beaver to cutting it loose. It seemed like forever though. I just hope the beaver survived this little episode.
I sure got some laughs telling my story. And I haven’t fished around that island since. But some day I will catch a monster catfish!
Photo Credits:
catfish: drrj on morguefile.com
beaver: luisrock62 on morguefile.com
Social Links